It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas. Well, it is in the Tesco seasonal aisle anyway, the chocolate are out in full force. The crisps, not so much, but I did find these nestled in the proper crisp aisle, next to the returning pigs in blankets flavour, so I imagine this is a Christmas themed edition of Tesco Finest crisps. It's cocoa and spiced rum, which certainly seems to fit the bill, and at first elicited a response of "what?" But I should know never to judge a crisp by its chocolate flavouring, after I was blown away by those chocolate corn puffs last week. The spiced rum was perhaps more likely to put me off, it's not really my drink of choice, and those prosecco flavoured crisps they churned out last year were pretty awful. But it is my duty to try out these flavours, so I can inform whether you should stay the hell away or not.
You know what? These aren't bad at all. I know the idea of a chocolate crisp is at first repulsive, but I think it's done rather well here. There's a nice balance of cocoa and sugar, that gives these a mellow, sweet taste, and the chocolate flavouring actually works pretty well with the texture of the potato chip. There's also some salt present, as you'd expect to find in a packet of crisps, and it helps to bring out the flavours a bit more. As for the rum, it's a lot less pronounced than I expected, which is a good thing in some way. The cocoa does dominate quite a bit, but the rum is hiding behind it, providing a somewhat pleasant boozy undertone. I don't feel it's a particularly necessary inclusion, it's not that strong, but I think perhaps without it the cocoa may be a little too much, the rum probably takes some of the sweetness away, and leaves behind a balanced crisp. I'm mightily impressed with this new Finest range offering, I doubt it will find a permanent place in a pack of Walkers classic flavours, but it's a quirky idea that's neatly executed.
My rating: 4/5
